ARTS AND CULTURE - MANAL DOWAYAN: CREATIVE REPRESENTATIVE FOR HER HERITAGE, by Salma Shakir, Arab News - Manal Dowayan does not just shoot a picture when she looks through her viewfinder. She shares her culture, her heritage and her ideals with the rest of the world. She chooses her subjects very carefully in order to depict something that is very Saudi; her images are of subjective identities and acceptances and yet her portrayals have a distinctively universal appeal. Her photographs exposed in black and white can at once be identified as an ethnic delineation or a pandemic viewpoint. In her own words she is totally “Saudi.” Born and bred in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, her development as a photographer has been brought about more from within than without. The encouragement and support that she has received from her family and friends has been enormous. Manal feels that, if children are to develop and excel in any skill, both parents have to play their roles in nurturing the child. She feels extremely lucky to have parents who did just that... Full Article

ACID ATTACKS ON RISE IN SOUTH ASIA, Disputes Lead to Crimes Against Women That Too Often Go Unpunished, Nick Schifrin, New Delhi, April 16, 2008 for ABC News - In Mahalakshmi's life, there is a day before and a day after. The day before was Jan. 10, 2001. Her brown hair was pulled back, her brown eyes saw what she remembers as a "pleasant day," a day when the doctor went to work at her clinic in Mysore, India, and returned home to her daughter. The day after, she lay in a hospital bed, where she would stay for the next month and a half. She had lost her left eye and her left ear and her body was badly burned after her former landlord, in a rage, poured a bucket of acid on her head. "For someone born normal at birth, and leading a normal life, all of a sudden you become a disabled person. It is difficult to accept," Mahalakshmi, who uses only one name, told ABC News... Full article

THIS WEEK FEATURED LINKS: MEDIA: BBC News World Services DOCUMENTARY RESOURCES: Open access to knowledge and information: scholarly literature and digital library initiatives; the South Asian scenario [Direct Link]. RESEARCH CENTERS, Europe: Swedish South Asian Studies Network | University of Heidelberg | Centre for South Asian Studies in Edinburgh, Scotland | Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, UK | The British Association for South Asian Studies | Finnish University Network for East and Southeast Asian Studies BOOKS: South Asian Religions on Display: Religious Processions in South Asia and in the Diaspora, edited by Knut A. Jacobsen [published by Routledge]. RESOURCE CENTERS: South Asian Newspapers at SARID South Asian Magazines at SARID RESOURCE CENTERS for South Asian Studies in the United States: Columbia University | Cornell Syracuse University | North Carolina Consortium | University of California Berkeley | University of Chicago | University of Pennsyvania | University of Texas - Austin | University of Washington | University of Wisconsin - Madison. RESEARCH TOOLS: South Asia Research, at SAGE JOURNALS. PREVIOUSLY FEATURED LINKS

NEED FOR A NEW APPROACH TO BUILDING STORM SHELTERS FOR BANGLADESH - Sarid - Bangladesh blessed by nature with its fertile alluvial plains, rich and prolific rivers, is also the reluctant host to violent cyclones, tornadoes, tsunamis and untold nature's wrath and vagaries. The annual passage of nature's whims kills humans and livestock indiscriminately, destroys shelter randomly, thereby condemning its destitute and poor population to a never-ending cycle of misery and hardship... Full Article

IS INDIA FACING A FOOD CRISIS? BBC News - Is India, the world's second most populous nation, facing a food crisis? This question is vexing policy makers and analysts alike even as creeping inflation - around 7% now - is sending jitters through the Congress party-led ruling coalition. To be sure, India has not yet experienced riots over rising food prices that have hit other countries like Zimbabwe or Argentina. But what is worrying everybody is that the current rise in inflation is driven by high food prices … Full Article

UNCHECKED CLIMATE CHANGE = 125 MILLION REFUGEES IN SOUTH ASIA: Greenpeace - 'Hope for the best, plan for the worst', is the mantra of emergency planners everywhere. But, for 125 million people living in the low lying areas of South Asia, when it comes to climate change there is no plan that will adequately address the worst consequences. A new Greenpeace report warns that left unchecked climate change could lead to global temperature increases of between 4-5°C, unleashing a barrage of impacts that will drive mass migration in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. ... Full Article

SCHOLARSHIPS FOR SOUTH ASIAN 'LEADERS OF TOMORROW' - The Asian Pacific Post, Canada: For the past several years, the South Asian Family Association (SAFA) has been proud to award $500 scholarship funds to South Asian students in the areas of academic excellence and exemplary community involvement. These awards are presented at the non-profit’s flagship community event, Sawan Mela, which will be held July 12, 2008 at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The application form and program guidelines are available at: www.safa.ca. The deadline for submission is on May 15. Any inquiries regarding these scholarships can be sent to info@safa.ca.

AFRICA'S LOST TRIBE, THE SIDDIS FACE POVERTY IN INDIA: AFP - It's a village like thousands in India -- a few corner shops and dusty lanes dissecting small, mud-and-brick houses into haphazard rows on the edge of lush fields. What sets Jambur apart are its inhabitants -- some 4,000 men, women and children of unmistakably African origin called Siddis, and virtually all of them poor. "They're the lost tribes of Africa," said Ashish Nandi, sociologist at New Delhi's Centre for Developing Societies. But the Siddis in this village 470 kilometres (290 miles) southwest of Ahmedabad, the commercial capital of the western state Gujarat, say they know nothing of their origins as descendants of African slaves... Full Article

NEW IMAGES from Kasmir of a low-cost, earthquake resistant, energy efficient, and eco-friendly housing. The construction process utilizes a proprietary technology, MASS, developed by Javed Sultan of SARID, Inc. [Low cost housing | NEW IMAGES, July, 2007]

INDIA, PAKISTAN TO COOPERATE ON ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION : Daily Times, Pakistan - Pakistan and India agreed to increase cooperation for environment protection on Friday during a meeting between caretaker Environment, Local Governments and Rural Development Minister Syed Wajid Hussain Bokhari and Indian Minister of State for Environment and Forest Namo Narayan. A press release said both sides would follow decisions of the Technical Advisory Committee and share their experiences in lakes, rivers and vulture preservation to prevent degradation of environment in South Asia… Full Article

INDIAN SCHOOLS TRY TO DISMANTLE BARRIERS OF CASTE SYSTEM, Boston Globe - Not so long ago, in the back of a tin-roofed restaurant, Ramu, a teenage dishwasher, spent his nights chained to a radiator. That's how his employer kept him from running away. Ramu wanted to flee because his boss, who was from a higher, more privileged caste, constantly berated him for showing an interest in learning to read. The boss believed Ramu had to get used to a life of cleaning up after other people because as a Dalit, a member of India's lowest and most shunned caste, he could never amount to anything. Then a foreigner who ran a private school and home for Dalit children noticed Ramu. He enrolled him in classes. Ramu is now a star pupil with a voracious and ever-changing appetite for activities including yoga, photography, and film directing... Full Article

BANGLADESH GETS ITS FIRST BIOMASS PLANT, One World South Asia - The facility, located in an unelectrified town named Kapashia (Gazipur district), is part of a rural electrification project that aims to reach about 700,000 citizens through renewables. The green power plant, the first ever its kind in Bangladesh, is a 250 kW biomass gasification facility that generates renewable electricity from abundant agricultural residues such as rice husks. IDCOL provided concessionary loans and grants, sourced from IDA and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), for a total project costy of 25 million taka (€250,000) of which the World Bank provided 60%... Full Article

FOREIGN MINISTER HAILS REMOVAL OF GENDER BAR ON HOLDING PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Maldives - The Peoples Special Majlis (constitutional assembly) has taken the historic step of removing the gender bar from running for the Presidency of the Maldives during deliberations on revising the country's Constitution. Removing the gender bar was one of the keynote proposals presented by the President, H.E. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in 2004 when he initiated the process of constitutional reform. The removal of the gender bar is also a vital step towards honouring the Maldives' international commitments under UN human rights conventions. The decision to remove the bar came as the Special Majlis debates the Presidential chapter of the new Constitution. The success came despite a late attempt by a Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) Member, Mr. Hussain Ibrahim, to introduce an amendment to maintain the gender bar under the new Constitution. The amendment was rejected… Full Article

HE'S GOT CONNECTIONS, Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs, Wharton School of Business - For Iqbal Quadir, conventional success wasn't enough. Sure, he'd received an MBA at Wharton in 1987 and landed a job as an investment banker on Wall Street. Compared with millions of impoverished people in his native country of Bangladesh, he was a rich man. In 1992, he earned $250,000. But he wanted to use his skills to give something back to his homeland. His time at Wharton had taught him that business could be a tool for improving people's lives. "I learned that business allocates resources efficiently and disperses power," he says. "Historically, people got empowered through technologies like the metal farm plough, eyeglasses or clocks. An economically empowered population demanded checks and balances and improved governance. In effect, they promoted democracies and fairer economies." Quadir therefore decided to quit his job and try to bring modern telecommunications — "connectivity" is the term he prefers — to millions of poor people in his homeland... Full Article

PAKISTANS POVERTY RATE DECLINED BY FIVE PERCENT, Unique Pakistan - The World Bank is of the view that to end poverty in a generation, South Asian economies must sustain an economic growth rate of 8-10 percent a year. The World Bank Annual Report-2007 made available to the press the other day said Pakistan's poverty rate declined 5 percent in the first half of this decade. With growth has come an impressive reduction in poverty. "During the 1990s, poverty rates fell 7 percent in India, 9 percent in Bangladesh, and 11 percent in Nepal. Pakistan's poverty rate declined 5 percent in the first half of this decade. But to end poverty in a generation, South Asian economies must sustain an economic growth rate of 8-10 percent a year." The report says that rapid economic growth and progress in human development have raised the possibility that the region with the greatest number of poor people could end mass poverty within a generation. Following domestic reforms and external assistance, gross domestic product (GDP) in South Asia has grown at an average of nearly 6 percent a year for the past decade… Full Article

BANGLADESH 'FACING RICE CRISIS', BBC News - The chief of the Bangladesh army says the country is facing a catastrophe over rice supplies. General Moeen U Ahmed said that he was "very concerned" about the problem which he said must be redressed immediately. Many people have been hit hard by spiralling food prices, which in some cases have doubled over the last year. Rice is the staple diet of most Bangladeshis, but this year crops have been damaged by heavy monsoon rain... Full Article

BUILDING A STABLE FUTURE: SARID’s Sultan develops quake-resistant housing, by Tusha Mittal, India New England - Nazmeen Butt of Muzzarafabad is one of 3.5 million people displaced by a catastrophic earthquake that hit Pakistan in Oct. 2005. More than a year after she lost her home and her husband, Butt says widows like her are still to reap the benefits of reconstruction efforts. Sultan plans to construct 100 houses before disclosing information on his technique. Many non-governmental organizations spoke with Butt, but she says the results remained on paper. “Lots of people came, but did only file work,” she says. “They take our picture, take our data, but no one comes back to give us anything.” That changed when Butt met Javed Sultan, Director of South Asia Research Institute for Policy and Development (SARID), a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, Mass... Full Article

CHILDREN IN AFGHANISTAN AT INCREASING RISK - UNICEF, UNICEF - Suicide bombings, attacks on schools and roadside bombs have put the lives of scores of young Afghans at increasing risk, and threaten to undercut important gains in girls' education, UNICEF said on Thursday. Increasingly bloody fighting between Taliban insurgents and Afghan and Western forces created a dilemma for many parents who worried about letting their children go to school, the U.N. agency said in a Child Alert report. "Girls are particularly affected by the insurgents' targeting of girls' schools and even of the pupils themselves," the report concluded … Full Article

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TAX EXEMPT DONATION Dear Supporter! We would like to thank you in advance for your generous support. Please note that for time being SARID only accepts CHECK DONATIONS. Also, please allow couple of weeks for a formal letter of acknowledgment of your donation. Sincerely, Board of Directors, SARID Inc. A desperate Kashmir still needs your help. Please download the leaflet and distribute to your friends and associates. Thank You! SARID LAUNCHES ITS FIRST WOMEN CENTER (Sarid) - SARID, has launched its first Women Center in Muzaffar--abad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, funded by a generous dona-tion from Arif Muhammad and Sughra Bano ... Full Article

TSUNAMI RELIEF PROGRAM How SARID is Helping Relief Program News Tsunami News and Links SOUTH ASIAN EARTHQUAKE Support Earthquake Relief Effort: Even $1 of your contribution can make a difference: donate online Seismic Responsive Design Relief News Summary

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